“I heard a man call you by that name and when you stood up, I knew you weren’t Chance.” My father never mentioned any Morgan by the name of Tucker.” “You said my name when you entered the saloon last night, so you knew who I was.”
#Did cain die in menace to society full
“A full name would be nice,” he added, his voice clipped. “Who are you?” Tucker asked, his gaze again taking in the woman’s short, tangled hair and strange attire. “Boy, you better put that away before you hurt yourself.” Seeing the kid with his rifle still trained on him, he smiled. He took another gulp of coffee then turned back toward the mess waiting behind him. He had laughed as hard as everyone else when Henderson threw that marriage document into the pot, but it seemed the joke was on him. Tucker bit out a curse, feeling the disgust he heard in her voice. “You tricked me into signing an actual marriage document and I’m pretty sure your preacher friend muttered some vows.” “Not what I was told,” she answered in a stiff tone. “I’m sure it was a farce,” he said, mostly assuring himself as he stared into the steaming, dark depth of his coffee. What could have possessed him to actually marry the woman standing behind him? A man could find plenty of other ways to torture himself besides taking a wife. He filled a cup and took a few sips of the strong brew.
He was surprised to find a pot of coffee already steaming on the stove. Tucker turned his back on the boy and his rifle.
“I need some coffee,” he groaned, his head again pounding, the pain increasing by the second as the prior evening’s events came flooding back into his mind. This was a kid who’d seen his share of hardship, but, hell, who hadn’t? His hazel eyes revealed a boy well beyond his young age. Why else would she have been in a place like Big Jack’s? Tucker met the kid’s hard gaze. “Mister, I believe you just called my sister a whore.” The boy sat at the table, calm as you please, holding a rifle aimed straight at Tucker’s chest. Hearing the metallic click of a gun hammer, Tucker shifted his gaze toward the kid. “Are you new at Big Jack’s?” he ventured. Despite her threadbare clothes and bedraggled hair, she was a pretty thing. Not a true angel, his sober mind reasoned. He’d just won a hand of poker when he’d heard a woman say his name-then there she was, an angel with gilded hair and the purest sapphire eyes gazing straight into his soul. A vision from the saloon flashed in his mind. Sunlight streaking in from the bedroom window glimmered in the tangled golden hair wisped around her oval face.
“Yes?” called a feminine voice, just before the slender woman appeared in the doorway. “Skylar?” he said aloud, the name sounding no more familiar than the kid looked sitting before him. Surely this was some kind of misunderstanding between the woman and the boy. He rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw, trying to recall the events from the previous night. Skylar wasn’t a name he’d heard before, and he would have remembered that short, golden mane. Stunned, Tucker glanced toward the bedroom. I…am…Skylar’s…brother.” He dragged out each word as though he were talking to the town idiot. The kid’s white eyebrows pinched inward as his eyes narrowed. “My what?” Tucker countered, his headache suddenly forgotten. He gave the cotton-topped kid a quick once-over before muttering, “Who the hell are you?” A young boy with pure white hair sat at the little table that occupied the left half of his cabin. Tucker jumped at the sound of the unexpected greeting. Trying to jar his memory, he stood and slowly shuffled toward the kitchen. How had they ended up here? He’d never brought a woman back to this run-down cabin. Groaning, he forced himself to sit up and glance around his bedroom. Hell, with this headache, he needed a pint of whiskey. His headache wouldn’t even let him enjoy the view. Tucker closed his eyes, the pounding in his head increasing. The fabric of her bodice molded to the round swell of her breasts like a second skin. But her body, now that was all in proper order, with all the right curves in all the right places, and encased in a hideous blue dress that might have fit her once upon a time. Lying on her side, the golden strands swirled across her face. Her uncommonly short hair couldn’t reach past her shoulders. Her boots weren’t the laced or buttoned-up version most women wore, but the same leather tug-on boots he was wearing. The fact that he and the woman next to him were fully clothed being the most troubling.
Plenty about this morning was out of sorts. He lifted a wet cloth from his forehead and glanced again at the woman sleeping beside him. The fierce throbbing in his skull wasn’t the only thing out of sorts this morning. I t wasn’t all that uncommon for Tucker Morgan to wake up in bed with a strange woman and a pounding headache, but he wasn’t suffering from an ordinary hangover.